Tuesday, May 19, 2009

SELF-MEDICATING


Everything is unfolding beautifully!




Self-medicating

I woke up today entertaining a lot of negative thoughts. When I started to buy into them, I could feel myself getting dragged down. That was my internal compass alerting me to the fact that I was resisting my natural state of being; pure joy.

Choosing which thoughts I want to think, and changing the ones that don’t serve me isn’t as easy as it sounds. The shitty thoughts are stubborn and persistent; they’ll hound me and escalate as long as I let them. Today my thoughts needed a dose of Motorcycle Medicine. I knew the state of mind I was in was not going to produce any meaningful or inspired actions on my part, so I set out on my motorcycle knowing I had to get myself back to joy… sitting around telling myself I needed to do that was not working. I kept hearing what I have so often said to others, “Tap into joy…do something that feels good and takes you to joy…take whatever action necessary to change your thoughts to happy, feeling good thoughts.” So, I jumped on my Harley to rack up one-hundred miles and re-evaluate my condition upon my return.

I drove back down to Lake Geneva to re-experience something I stumbled upon while riding last Friday…

…a sea of tulips, thousands of them, at the peak of their springtime performance. And I knew, that to get to my peak performance, I had to first experience joy within myself. So, there I was, again gawking at, and absorbing the joyous energy of the tulip beds. Nature has such a beautiful, subtle way of communicating with us and helping us find our way back to our true nature. The tulips aren’t working their asses off to look or act beautiful, they just are beautiful being exactly what nature intended them to be; tulips!
Earlier this morning I was running a nearby trail through the Kettle Moraine Forest. A particular plant caught my attention, so I stopped to take a closer look and listen for my heart to reveal the message the plant had to offer. I observed the way each delicate red pods of the plant elegantly unfolded to expose several ornate, young leaves wanting to blossom and grow. As I stood in awe of this plant, the message for me became very clear; “Everything is unfolding beautifully.”

As I made my way back home from my Medicine Ride, I felt a deep sense of trust that everything truly is unfolding beautifully. Sometimes all it takes is 100 miles of asphalt on two wheels and a few hawks flying overhead, letting me know I’m on course, guiding myself back into my own nature…pure joy.

Joy is our natural state of being, inherently we know this, and have since birth. When we experience it amidst the programming, conditioning, or incessant voices in our heads; synchronicities become commonplace and life unfolds beautifully and effortlessly.

I read an article in Harley-Davison’s new HOG Magazine in which the following quote intrigued me; “I’m basing my prediction on a simple, time-tested medical fact: Biking is an addiction. Once motorcycling is in your blood, it never leaves. Studies show it’s a more powerful addiction than caffeine and nicotine combined. If I could distill it, bottle it, and sell it on eBay, I could take over the whole world.” The Medicine really isn’t the motorcycling, it is JOY and it has always been in your blood, it has never left, and it’s free! The definition of addiction is to surrender or give over. Motorcycling is a vehicle for surrendering or giving over to the Self, who and what I truly am; joy expressing. It’s my soul calling for me to return to my Self, I just happen to love using my motorcycle as a quick, easy way to get back there. It’s a heart-felt desire; a deep yearning, not just a craving that needs a quick fix. It’s an ongoing process, my evolution back home to my heart.

Just as our bodies heal physical wounds by generating new cells to repair the damage and bring it back to its natural state, the soul has us reaching out for ways to experience joy in our lives to repair the damage of self-inflicted or circumstantial wounds to bring it back to its natural state.

You really don’t need a motorcycle to take you there, but if a 100 mile motorcycle ride is the Medicine it takes to get you there, do it! You will come back a much freer, peaceful, productive human, and the people around you will respond accordingly. And when you keep practicing going to that place/space within yourself via the open road, you will begin to take that practice into your off-road experiences as well.

If I can’t ride when I feel the yearning, I get outside or just look outside. Getting closer to nature is the way I get closer to my own nature. It’s a matter of stepping out of wherever I’m at and being still, even if only for a moment or two. If I can’t physically get outside, I simply look out a window and connect.

Life, like a motorcycle ride, is an adventure and it’s calling us to participate. Join it, full throttle!
(I am technilogically challenged there fore, the photographs are not placed within the text as I would have liked...I'll figure it out eventually!)